


say yes

by oddlyqueer



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Dinner dates, Engagement, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), i had a sad thought today and needed a distraction, so here you go, some soft sweet fluff, with hints of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 17:35:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19468804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddlyqueer/pseuds/oddlyqueer
Summary: six thousand years is a rather long time to wait for engagement, even for angels who like to go slow.





	say yes

There have been many proposals over the years that this Earth has been in existence. Some have ended in happiness, some sadness, some in what appeared to be happiness and later turned out to be sadness. This particular evening, sixty-seven proposals are going to occur. Sixty-five of the sixty-seven are completely irrelevant to this story. Two of the sixty-seven were going to occur in London. One of these London proposals will be incidental to this story. The other London proposal is the main focus of it.

At this exact moment, two couples are in line to get into the Ritz. One of these couples consists of Jessica Ellen MacDougal and Liesel Rodriguez. They are both very well dressed, and very nervous, and still giggling over the taxi driver thinking they were sisters on the drive there. 

The other couple, as you may have guessed by this point, consists of Aziraphale and Crowley. 

If someone, say, God, was able to look into Aziraphale’s head at this exact moment, there would be quite a lot going on inside. For one thing, he is being very careful not to lose the small red velvet box in his coat pocket, which contained a silver ring inset with two grey diamonds. For another, he is wondering if he should have dressed up for the occasion—after all, Crowley is rather more dressed up than usual, having ditched the t-shirt and string tie in exchange for a full four-piece suit. 

Crowley, on the other hand, is wondering whether he is overdressed. His suit is red—a deep, scarlet red, but still a red—and he feels overdressed, so he must be overdressed. Whether or not he actually is overdressed is up for debate. He is also rather worried about the baby blue velvet box currently burning a hole in his pocket, which contains a gold ring with a black sapphire and a white sapphire inlaid into it. It was nearly lost in one of his jacket’s myriad pockets, but he is now being very careful to keep it safe, and trying very hard not to forget where it is.

They are led to their table by a waiter. This waiter has heard stories of the couple who miraculously shows up every time a table has come free. All of his coworkers have served them except for him, and he is now about to get his big moment. Hopefully, he gets a good story. One of his coworkers tells the story of the man in the dark glasses accidentally tripping and falling on top of the man who always wears the same coat, with a great deal of (as he calls it in his retellings) “painfully obvious gay pining”. 

At this point, Crowley tries to pull out Aziraphale’s chair for him, and the waiter takes careful note of this, filing it away for later use with his coworkers. At the same time, Aziraphale goes to pull his chair out as well, and their hands collide, Crowley’s hand on top of Aziraphale’s. 

“Crowley, darling,” Aziraphale says, his heart pounding. “May I, er. May I have my hand back, please?”

“Oh. Yeah. Course. Go ahead.” Crowley takes a step back, embarrassed. Both angel and demon are currently panicking over whether or not there is something there between them.

Ah, yes. When the lovely narrator mentioned that Crowley and Aziraphale are a couple, there were a few things left out of that sentence. A more accurate description of Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship would be “two people who are incredibly in love, and appear to be a couple to everyone, and yet still have not realized that they are actively participating in a romantic relationship.”

At this point, Aziraphale knows that Crowley is in love with him. Though he can be incredibly stupid at times, he is also incredibly observant, and of course Crowley isn’t exactly subtle. The modern term for it is “heart eyes”, but Aziraphale doesn’t know this word. He does know the word “infatuated”, however, and believes that this is an incredibly appropriate word for Crowley’s expression.

“Y’alright?”

Aziraphale, at that moment, had just been mentally cataloguing his plan for proposing to Crowley. He blinked, trying to focus on the present moment. 

“Ah, yes. I’m alright.” He sat down in his seat, smiling over at Crowley. Crowley, on the other hand, was having a slight panic attack over said smile.

See, Crowley still isn’t sure if Aziraphale is in love with him. Though it may be obvious, and he knows with at least seventy percent certainty that Aziraphale’s capacity for love is endless, years of “oh, we’re not friends” and “you go too fast for me” and “we’re on opposite sides” has made him rather unsure of his conclusion. All that is gone, at least mostly, but it affected him quite a lot when it happened, and he still moves slowly when it comes to Aziraphale. Tonight, though, he figures that six thousand years is enough time to be almost-in-love for someone to propose. After all, humans do it only after a few. 

Dinner is uneventful for a while. They order champagne, have a few drinks, and are about to start the dessert course when our second relationship becomes relevant. 

Tonight at the Ritz, there are three ring boxes. One of these is tucked into Aziraphale’s coat, one is resting securely in Crowley’s pocket, and one is currently in Jessica Ellen Macdougal’s hand. 

As the rest of the tables around them stare, Jessica gets down on one knee next to Liesel. Immediately, Liesel’s eyes widen. She is evidently in just as much shock about this as the rest of them are. Everyone in the restaurant is watching in interest as Jessica begins to speak.

“I know you said you didn’t want me to get you a ring,” she begins. Liesel giggles wetly. She’s started to cry already. “But I just figured that this would be okay, since it’s not exactly a ring. I just—I rehearsed this, and I keep forgetting what I want to say. All I can remember is I was going to end with asking you to marry me.”

Liesel nods through her tears of joy and pulls Jessica into a hug. All around the restaurant, people clap politely, and Aziraphale looks on in fondness. 

“That was darling, wasn’t it?” he says, turning back to his plate with one of his small smiles. 

“Would you ever think about getting married?” Crowley asks, seemingly not having heard Aziraphale. “In the future, I mean. To another angel, or a human, or—I don’t know.”

“Oh. Well, I can’t say I haven’t thought about it,” he says, slipping one hand into the pocket holding the ring box. “In the future, perhaps. I don’t know why I would ever marry a human, though. They have such short lives, you know, and I wouldn’t want to get too attached. Besides, humans don’t really seem the best at understanding ethereal beings.”

Crowley hums softly in agreement, sliding the ring box out of his pocket and nervously clicking it open and closed. “What about another angel, maybe?” 

“I can’t say I know of any angels I’d particularly like to marry,” Aziraphale says after a short moment of consideration. “You know heaven and I aren’t exactly… close at the moment. Why do you ask, anyway?”

“No reason,” he says, leaning forward onto the table and staring up at Aziraphale. There is, of course, a reason, as we well know. We know that Crowley is, in fact, extremely infatuated with Aziraphale, and his questions are the basis for whether or not he will actually be doing the proposing tonight. He is incredibly nervous about this, actually, and Crowley is not often nervous. The last time he was nervous, the world was intent on ending. 

“Well, in any case, our dessert is here,” Aziraphale says, and they drop the topic for a few minutes while Crowley watches Aziraphale eat the mille-feuille he ordered. 

Here we will step back for a moment to discuss a few things: angels, demons, books, and cake.

Angels, like many people, are good. Aziraphale is a different sort of angel than most, in that he is very capable of doing bad, but still wants to do good. One of the good things that he is currently trying to do is figure out what exactly has Crowley so nervous, so that he can calm him down. His guesses are not very good.

Demons, also like many people, are bad. Crowley is not like a demon. He is like Aziraphale, capable of doing bad and still wanting to do good, except he tries to pretend that his good deeds are bad or that they don’t exist. He has done several good deeds over the course of this dinner, most of which were for Aziraphale.

Books are not like people. Books are good, or books are bad. Books are also very good at containing prophecies, especially one book by the name of  _ Further Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter _ . This book, unfortunately, is no longer in existence, having been forcibly set on fire by a lovely young lady by the name of Anathema Device and her close friend Newton Pulsifer. If the book were still in existence, however, prophecy number 623 would read as follows:  _ Angels and Daemons are nott Human, yet they shall followe suite with the Proposals of the Humans.  _ Neither Aziraphale nor Crowley know about this prophecy. 

Cake is also not like people. It is like angels, in a way, in that it is incredibly good. It is also like demons, in a way, in that it is incredibly bad. Both Hastur and Michael take credit for the invention of cake. Aziraphale, however, doesn’t much care who invented it. He only cares that it’s delicious, and this is where we return to our story.

When Aziraphale finishes his cake, he puts down the fork and sighs happily. “Ah. Perfect.”

“Shall we go, then?” 

“Oh yes, please.” Aziraphale stands up, straightening his bow tie, and gets ready to leave. Crowley looks down at the check and miracles up the money to pay, along with a 15% tip.

“You really are a nice person,” Aziraphale says with a small smile. 

“Oh, shut up,” Crowley says, his face reddening. 

Crowley’s “shut up” often means “shut up”. Sometimes, it means “please keep talking to me and bothering me, Aziraphale, because I love hearing your voice”. On a rare occasion, it means “I’m pretending I want you to go away, but really I’m suffering and I need you to stay here with me.” Today, it’s the second option, and Aziraphale can tell that it’s the second option. 

“I mean it, my dear. You’re so kind,” he says, knowing that it will get under Crowley’s skin. 

“I’m not kind,” he hisses. “See, tipping, it’s—it’s evil. Very evil. I’m putting it on my Deeds of the Day.”

“You don’t have Deeds of the Day anymore, remember?” Aziraphale pauses. “How would you even pretend that’s evil? It’s tipping, my dear, and a big tip besides. You’re being nice, and there’s no denying it.”

“It’s evil,” Crowley says petulantly. He seems to be set on convincing Aziraphale of this fact. “If I give it to one person, they’ll all want one, and they’ll either get greedy or they’ll be jealous of him. See? Perfectly evil. If I was still aligned with hell, they’d be so proud.”

Aziraphale gives him a disbelieving look. His look says something along the lines of “I have known this absolute disaster demon for six thousand years, and I can tell when he’s lying”. Crowley is very good at interpreting the little glances and expressions Aziraphale has. That’s a rather natural side effect of being nearly-dating for millennia. He can interpret this one as well, and just gives Aziraphale a glare in reply. 

“Oh, look, fireflies,” Aziraphale says excitedly, crouching down next to a flower bed and reaching out a hand to let a firefly land on it. “Aren’t they just darling?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Crowley says with a sigh, rolling his eyes behind his glasses. Secretly, though, at this exact moment, he is thinking about how perfect his angel is, and how perfect this moment is for a proposal. It couldn’t be any cuter if they tried, and of course, they weren’t trying. 

Aziraphale lets the firefly go, watching it in wonder. As Crowley wanders aimlessly beside the Thames, he hums to himself quietly. The Bentley has been playing romantic songs way more often as of late. Perhaps it can sense the love rolling off of Crowley. It’s surprising that the rest of the world can’t sense it, too—after all, it’s obvious to everyone except for him. 

(Yes, this applies to Aziraphale as well. Angels have a special power that allows them to sense others’ emotions like a bubble around them. Think of it as hyper-empathy.)

Following close beside him, Aziraphale listens as Crowley hums. Something light and soft and altogether much too appropriate for this scenario. Something the Bentley has been playing far too often. He doesn’t seem to notice he’s doing it, but of course Aziraphale does, so he presses himself closer to Crowley and listens to him as his humming gently turns to singing. 

Aziraphale doesn’t particularly like Queen. He prefers the classical music that he used to listen to all the time, the soft violins and flutes being particularly comforting to him. However, this song specifically is one of his favorites, because it seems to be one of Crowley’s favorites too. 

(It isn’t one of Crowley’s favorites.  _ Love Of My Life  _ is a bit too on the nose, even for him.) 

“You really do have a nice voice,” Aziraphale said softly, not wanting to startle him at all. Crowley immediately stops, taking a step away from him quickly before looking down at the path.

“Shut up,” he says. This “shut up” is another of the “please keep talking” types of “shut up”. He finally lifts his gaze from his feet, looking at Aziraphale. The look on his face could be accurately described as “soft”. 

For a few moments, they walk in comfortable silence until they reach their usual spot—the bench beside the Thames. Aziraphale gestures for Crowley to sit first, smiling at him. 

Angels and demons are not hereditary enemies, at least not these two. There is a decided amount of romantic energy in the air. If Anathema were there, she would actually be overwhelmed by the bright, loving auras radiating off of them. In fact, if anyone but the two of them were there, they’d notice how in love the two of them were. However, Aziraphale and Crowley are the only ones in the park at this time of night, and thus there is no one to observe the way they’re looking at each other.

“My dear, are you alright?” Aziraphale asks, his brow furrowed in worry. “It seems like you’re rather preoccupied with something. I do hope I haven’t interrupted.”

“You can’t interrupt, angel. Just like you can’t do the wrong thing.”

“Crowley, you know as well as I do that I am perfectly capable of doing things wrong,” Aziraphale says, slightly indignant. He looks genuinely offended by Crowley’s compliment. “Case in point—”

“This evening,” Crowley says bitterly. Immediately he regrets it.  _ Why the heaven—hell—why the  _ wherever  _ did I say that?  _ He doesn’t want to mess this up, but he already must have, or else Aziraphale wouldn’t be giving him that look. He’s been on the receiving end of Aziraphale’s Anxious Upset Looks before, and they make him worried. It always feels like he’s done something wrong. 

“What’s wrong with this evening?” Aziraphale asks. Crowley can detect a tiny wobble in his voice.

“No, this isn’t your fault at all.” Crowley puts his head in his hands. “God, I can’t even talk to you without ruining it somehow. I was just—I wanted to make this perfect. I had so many stupid ideas of where to take you, and it ended up just falling apart.”

“Oh, my dear, you aren’t ruining anything,” Aziraphale says softly. There is an undeniable note of worry in his voice, one that stings at Crowley’s heart as if he’s been shot. 

“Doesn’t matter. Whatever.” In barely a moment, he’s composing himself again. It’s impressive, almost, how fast he can go from frustration (or worry or depression) to a blank and unreadable face. Unless you know what to look for, you would think he had some sort of demonic power to erase emotions.

“Crowley, wait,” Aziraphale says, forcing him to look into his eyes. “I don’t want you to think that.” 

Gently, surely, Aziraphale reaches up to Crowley’s glasses. After a slight pause, as if asking for permission, Crowley nods, and Aziraphale pulls his glasses off and tucks them into his pocket. 

His eyes are one of the places that he cannot control his emotions. The glasses aren’t just to look human—he could go completely unnoticed in a crowd if he wanted to with very little trouble. Mostly, the glasses are to protect himself from the whole world seeing just how much he wears his heart on his sleeve. It’s both a blessing and a curse that he wears them so much. They protect him, of course, but they’ve also made him more vulnerable without the glasses, and thus more vulnerable around Aziraphale. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

Crowley is at a complete loss for words. Normally, there’d be some snappy comeback available, a biting remark that would make Aziraphale pretend to be frustrated for a moment before returning to some other topic of conversation. Tonight, though, he doesn’t feel like that fits. There’s something about how Aziraphale has been acting that Crowley can’t place. Of course, we know exactly what’s happening and why, but unfortunately not everyone has the good fortune to be omniscient. 

“Yeah, m’fine,” he says quietly, staring at the Thames as it flows past. His thoughts are running a mile a minute, and he can’t keep track of them. 

“If you’re not, we can go back home—ah, to the bookshop, I mean.” The two of them have been referring to both the bookshop and Crowley’s flat as “home” intermittently. Neither place is really home for them, but at this point there are more of Aziraphale’s things at Crowley’s flat than there are at his bookshop, and more of Crowley’s things at Aziraphale’s bookshop than there are in his flat. Even some of the plants have been forcibly transferred to the bookshop. They don’t mind, though, since their new residence involves a lot less screaming and threatening with the garbage disposal. 

“No, s’fine. I said it’s fine, and it’s fine.” 

As those of us who are either psychic or have functioning brains can tell, Crowley is not fine. Aziraphale falls under both of these umbrellas, and he also has the added bonus of knowing Crowley for a rather significant part of his life. Thus, he can tell that Crowley is not fine. 

He looks Crowley in the eyes. Crowley’s pupils decide that now is the perfect time to betray him, and widen in a rather affectionate (and rather adorable) way. 

“How about we go over here?” he asks, realizing the opportunity in front of him and leading Crowley closer to the riverside. Crowley follows halfheartedly. He was just about to call it quits on the whole proposal thing, give up on it entirely and throw the blasted ring into the Thames on his drive home, and Aziraphale is making those plans significantly more difficult by being so  _ damn cute. _

For a moment, he turns around, debating whether or not to actually do it, and when he turns back around, Aziraphale is on one knee. 

Crowley’s heart stops.

“I—er—I had a speech prepared, but I’m afraid I’ve quite forgotten it,” he says bashfully. “It was rather good, too, I’m honestly quite upset with myself. The main point of it, however, was this.”

He produces the ring box from in his coat pocket, and Crowley’s heart, which had just begun functioning properly once again, starts beating double-time. 

Gently, with one shaking hand, he closes the ring box. Aziraphale’s face falls. 

“No, angel, I just mean that—” He rummages in his pockets for a moment and takes out a ring of his own with a shaky laugh. “I was—I thought tonight would be a good night to, er—pop the question, to use the human expression.”

Aziraphale looks up at him, mystified, before getting up and throwing his arms around him with such force that it almost knocks Crowley back into the Thames. 

“I’m—er—I think that’s a yes, then?” Crowley manages to say. 

“You were really planning it, for all this time?”

“For, well—close on four thousand years now, I think. Had the ring and everything, too. I could never really manage to, you know. Do it.”

“So everything—everything since the two-thousands the last time around—” Aziraphale takes a step back and looks at him with some unidentifiable emotion in his face. “Is that why you’ve been behaving so different for the past—oh, the past  _ four thousand years _ and you never thought to tell me?”

Crowley mumbles something under his breath. Aziraphale can’t hear it. Even though we can, we ought not intrude on his thoughts. 

“Pardon me?”

“Didn’t think you’d say yes,” he says reluctantly, thinking that this will elicit some sort of angry response from Aziraphale. Instead, however, Aziraphale just puts his arms around Crowley once again.

“Well, of course I would. And I’m glad that you asked—or that I asked—oh,  _ whatever _ ,” Aziraphale says softly, looking at him with a sweet, soft expression. After a moment of deliberation, he puts his hands on Crowley’s face gently and pulls him into a kiss.

The next day, Newt gets a phone call, casually asking whether or not he and Anathema still had the book of prophecies, and whether it says anything about a wedding, because Crowley is insisting on holding it in May but June weddings are traditional, of course—

“Wait. You two are getting married?”

“Oh.  _ Oh, _ I  _ knew _ I’d forgotten to tell you something,” Aziraphale said with a sigh. “I assumed you already knew.”

Anathema, of course, had known. They’d had tea a few days ago, and if she hadn’t noticed the very obvious rings they were wearing, she would not have been a very good witch. 

(There was a prophecy about a wedding, of course. Unfortunately, it didn’t say anything about the date. In the end, they planned it for June, as well as an engagement party during May, just to appease Crowley.)

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you all enjoyed this little fluffy fic! i know i said i wouldn't post while away, but i watched good omens and the spirit quite frankly possessed me to write. there may be a part two, or this may become a longer fic, i'm not quite sure yet whether i have that kind of motivation ahaha.
> 
> thank you to my marvelous friends for reading over this and fixing my horrendous typos, and thank you, my darling readers, for sticking with me! 
> 
> as always, comments and kudos are very much appreciated.


End file.
